charleysblog

Dear friends and family, I am now in the coffee country of Colombia, presently in Filandia, a cute tourist town or almost all Colombian weekend tourists. Today is Monday and half the business are closed after a festival this weekend. I flew from Bogota to Armenia, an easy hour flight, and my bike in bag […]

To save myself riding for a few days in heavy traffic, I packed up my bike in Villa de Leyva and jumped on a bus for the four hour ride to Bogota. The bus terminal was on the opposite side of town from Candelaria, where I had a reservation at my hostel, so no problem

Dear friends and family, This morning my task was to re-assemble my bike after having packed it in the bag I carry for the bus trip and flight inside the country. I am now in Armenia, in the middle of the coffee country. Armenia is a working class city of about a half a million

Dear friends and family, I’ve been in rest and recovery mode after a long and grueling series of climbs on the bike in the heat. Turns out that it takes a few days to recover, not the one or two that I was hoping. I am in a tourist town of 16,000 people called Villa

Dear friends and family, I thought I’d share some details of  this temporary life I’ve chosen. 0430 alarm goes off Stretching and breathing exercises and bathroom Then time to journal and finish setting up the plan for the day. I do not automatically jump out of bed and be ready for the challenge of the day.

Dear friends and family, I thought I would get back to riding and give up the thoughts about staying put and just writing- for now. Once again I was sharing the road  with trucks, busses and motorcycles. Most of the time there was a shoulder to stay over on. I wasn’t expecting much after the

Dear friends and family, I’ve written earlier about being a dreamer and modeling my dreams off either an experience or books. Early on in my life I started to read Hemingway novels and about his life. There was little separation as he did quite a job portraying himself as the hero from his books. Actually,

Dear friends and family, While I had time in Barichara, I went to explore some of the local traditions: I wanted to try the local delicacy, Hormigas Culonas, which translates to “ big- bottomed ants” or the more modern translation “ big-ass ants”. I didn’t see them in stores, probably because they show up in

I am sitting on the covered upstairs porch of my hotel. It is hot out, but high  up here I can feel the cooler breeze and I am out of the sun. This makes the weather about perfect. I brought my keyboard for my ipad and use it regularly for my blog writing. Ive been

Dear family and friends, Clickbait! Yup, give me a hard time. But. But, there is some reality to what I am giving up. I am giving up on my plan to ride north to south across Colombia. There’s lots of reasons. There is the danger of getting near the Ecuador border. For some reason I